Ace Combat: Outlander
by Yutyrant95
Summary: What would you do if the world you knew disappeared in the stead of another, stranger one? During a patrol over the North Atlantic, Lt. Coralle M. Randolph finds herself inside a storm with no equal. Her plane is virtually ripped apart and forced down into the ocean during which, the world seems to blur and bend before her eyes. Now she is taken in by ISAF and flies against Erusia.
1. Chapter 1: Fallen Sparrow

The warning lights in the F/A-18's cockpit were flashing bright red. Lieutenant Coralee M. Randolph turned in her seat to look over her shoulder at her copilot. What she saw was nothing more than a smoking corpse covered in glass. Lightning had struck the cockpit and burst through the glass, killing her copilot. She then turned back around in her seat to check her instruments and reassert control over her plane. The pressure leak had caused her to drop in altitude and Coralee began to make adjustments to her flight path to try to level out.

It was like the rain was actually pushing her down. She tightened her face mask and punched the afterburners. She was gaining altitude again but another lightning bolt clipped her left wing and sent a power surge through her systems. Her altimeter flickered but remained active, her weapons HUD did the same, but powered off completely as did her Satnav. She could now only tell how high and how fast she was going. Coralee's composure was quickly draining away as all her training gave way to panic.

"Mayday, Mayday. Mayday. This is Lieutenant Coralee Randolph of the USS John F. Kennedy. I've been struck by lightning and my copilot is dead. Several key systems are dead and I'm losing altitude. My exact position is unknown, please, is anyone picking me up on radar?" Her speed began to dip below 200mph and the nose of her plane began to point down and it seemed like everything around her began to blur. It wasn't a G-force induced grey tunnel but to her eyes it felt very similar. The rain and the wind seemed to swirl around her plane and at this time all her instruments went black.

She tried to punch out, but her ejection system wasn't working at all. The now lifeless F-18 now plummeted through the clouds with greater speed. She tried with all her might to pull her plane out of this spiral but nothing seemed to work. Coralee started flipping switches in a vain attempt to restart some broken system or another. A third lightning bolt struck her plane's nose and sent another power surge through her consul and a few systems began to boot back up. Her plane crashed through the bottom of the clouds and into the main rain columns. She was still flying a dead stick but now she was able to punch out. Coralee pulled the red ejection lever as hard as she could and her canopy popped up and shattered in the storm. Shortly after, her seat's rockets fired and she shot upward into the air and she pulled her shute. She gripped onto her harness as she watched her plane and her copilot plummet towards the water below.

Coralee continued to repeat her mayday as she fell towards the water below. "Please is anyone receiving me? My exact position is unknown. This is Lieutenant Coralee Randolph from the USS John F. Kennedy." As before all she got was static, but after a few moments a garbled voice answered back.

"Reading you...the recon...ISAN...Cardinal...please repeat...ident..."

This new voice instantly filled her with hope, "Oh my God yes! This is Lieutenant Coralee Randolph from the carrier USS John F. Kennedy. My satnav was knocked out before I ejected so my exact position is unknown."

"...F. Kennedy?...last position...storm dying down...spotters on their way...ere soon...hang in there Lieutenant..."

* * *

Once her seat hit the water, she opened her dye valves. Her flight suit was already soaked from the rain and the sea water wasn't going to help that. She unhooked her mask from her face so she could breathe easier. The rain was very steady but wasn't pounding as hard as it was up above. She rolled her sleeve up to read her watch; 13:47. Then above the sound of the swelling waves and splashing rain she could hear the faint roar of two jets approaching. She brushed her sopping wet hair from her eyes to see better as they got closer. Two navy blue F-5 Tigers, with white markings, roared overhead as Coralee took her helmet off and waved to them. They banked and sharply turned around so they could see better on another pass. Both planes wangled their wings signaling that they could see her and then spoke over the radio.

"Lt. Randolph? This is ISAF Rapier 1 from Allenfort Airbase on Newfield Island. The Recon ship Cardinal as sent a rescue chopper to your position. ETA should be around 20min. Do not resist once aboard and you are taken in for questioning."

Coralee looked confused as both F-5s returned to the direction that they came from.

"I'm sorry, say again? Taken in for questioning?"

* * *

 **Author's Note: Well here it is, my first Ace Combat fan fiction. If you enjoyed it so far, please hit follow to stay up to date and leave a comment with whatever you liked or disliked. Updates will be irregular, but they will be posted. Thanks again and fly safe!**

 **-Colonel Zutan**


	2. Chapter 2: Caged Bird

Chapter 2

Coralee couldn't keep her eyes open in the face of the wind and spray the chopper above her head was kicking up. She could see the rescue line coming down towards her though with a paramedic in tow. Once it touched the water she swam over to it. The rain had died down but the wind was still howling and the pilot overhead made quite the effort to stay in one spot. The paramedic did a very quick examination of Coralee before hooking her into the harness and radioed for them to pull them back up. The ride up seemed like an eternity as she starred back down towards the water, saying her final goodbyes to her copilot who now rested beneath the waves. Once on board she was greeted by two soldiers armed with MP5s who pointed their guns at her as soon as she was unhooked.

"Goddamnit guys, put the bloody guns down. Clearly she's been through enough. Where's she gonna go?" The paramedic took his helmet off after unhooking himself and closing the chopper doors. His face was grey and disheveled, almost like he was pulled from retirement. His graying hair was short, but unkempt and the lines on his face betrayed his true age of probably the upper 40s. "Sorry lass, I'm not gonna let them shoot ya, but I do need to restrain you. Please don't do anything foolish." His accent almost sounded Irish and all she did was nod as he put the cuffs around her wrists and sat her down.

 _What the hell is going on?_ She thought. Coralee looked at the two soldiers and their SMGs. On their soldiers, where their country's flag would be, there were three blue arrow points arranged in a triangle. Their blueish-gray uniforms also said ISAF Navy on them. The paramedic looked at the flag on her shoulder. "I don't think I've ever seen that flag before lass. Where ya from?" This took her by surprise and she couldn't help but look at him with a skeptical face.

"You've never seen the stars n' stripes before? You must think me a fool if you're telling me you've never heard of the United States of America." Her deep-Georgian accent took him by surprise as well.

"Your accent sounds vaguely Osean, but I can't say I've ever heard of these united states you speak of lass. You can tell us more once we land." Nothing the man said made sense to her. _Osea? That can't be a real place._ The rest of the flight was largely silent save for the rotor noise above them. The other soldiers kept their fingers on the triggers of their weapons just to be ready. They more she looked at them the more on edge they seemed. One kept tapping his gun's trigger guard and the other one would periodically look out the window like he was expecting something but didn't necessarily want to find it. The paramedic simply kept his eyes closed. _Once we land, and they get in contact with the Kennedy, I would be shocked if these men don't all get court marshaled. Abducting and arresting an allied pilot? What the hell is going on_ here?

The sounds of planes taking off became louder and louder as the chopper approached it's home-ship. It slowed down as it began to land. The doors opened and a strong breeze came through from the rotors up above and the soldiers pointed their guns at Coralee once again and they began to escort her outside. She squinted from the rapid change in light and when her eyes focused she could see a small fleet anchored off the coast of a small island. _This must be the island I heard about over the radio_. Coralee heard another jet about to take off and she turned to see a solid blue F-4 Phantom spinning up its engines. On it's tail it had a blue and white mobius loop. The same three triangle pattern was on the body along with the letters, ISAF. She stopped to watch it take off but one of the soldiers just pushed her to keep walking. The catapult came upon behind the Phantom and it pushed its engines has far as they could go and it sped off into the clouds then banked hard to the south-east once it got to its desired altitude. _Okay, seriously, what's going on here. Vietnam era planes? ISAF? Why does it look like thy're fighting a war and losing?_ As they were taking her inside, the air raid sirens began to go off and people began to scatter towards their designated stations.

* * *

Coralee now found herself inside a small cell in the lower decks of the surveillance vessel. The ISAF crew had taken her flight jacket and everything else in her pockets, her smartphone especially, she watched as one of the soldiers compared it to his own phone which flipped open and still had a pull-out antenna. Her wallet lay open in the security bin, the soldiers had looked through it for any usable cash, but on finding 37 dollars and 20 pounds, niether of which they recognized, they sloppily stuffed all her cash back inside. Her headphones dangled out of her jacket's pocket in a tangled mess and she prayed they weren't broken or shorted out.

She could hear explosions and gunfire outside but her vision was limited to one porthole that couldn't have been more than a foot and a half wide. She finally caught glimpse of a large plane flying overhead. To her it looked like a Tu-95 Bear. _Russians?_ As she looked up she saw a glimmer turn into the blue Phantom she watched take off when they had landed. A distant and prolonged buzz accompanied hundreds of tracer rounds as the F-4's machine gun effectively sheared the Bear's wing apart and it began to plummet in a cloud of smoke and flame. The blue Phantom banked hard towards another bomber that came into view, trailing sharp contrails. _What a fantastic pilot._ As the plane banked upward the contrails seemed to form a double spiral before dissipating. Once again the Phantom's gun ripped through the bomber and it began to fall from the sky. Once again the blue fighter banked hard toward's his next target, but this time it flew out of Coralee's field of vision. _I certainly hope I can meet him once all this ugliness is_ _resolved_.

Coralee sat down on the fold-out metal cot in her cell and leaned against the singular pillow they had provide in the room. It had a strong musty odder, like it had been dropped in the sea and then not properly dried out. The sounds from outside were dying down and she expected someone to walk in and begin her questioning. Nearly 20 minutes had passed and Coralee was drifting off to sleep, but as her eyes began to sink shut the metal door clanked open and to her surprise the same paramedic that had picked her up out of the water walked in wearing a captain's uniform. He shut the door behind him and pulled a stool over to the bars.

"Hello again lass, shall we begin?"

* * *

 ** _Author's Note: I'm so sorry this took so long, but my original document got corupted somehow and I had to scrap it. It's fairly close to how I had it before. Thank's again for reading, I promise it won't be so long next time._**


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